An insult the boy couldn’t accept

February 27, 2012

Takes his life after picked up for theft by cops
A 14-year-old boy, apparently unable to bear the disgrace of being picked up by police in connection with theft, yesterday took his own life.
The family of the deceased, Khondker Shafiqul Islam Dipraj, 14, a class VIII student of Shaheed Zia Bashabo High School in the capital, said Dipraj locked himself in his room and hanged himself around 2:30pm.
A woman who lived near Dipraj’s Bashabo home called in the police on Friday and complained that Dipraj had stolen the electric cable of her house.
Police picked up the boy but let him go later on when Dipraj’s parents and locals pleaded for his release.
The law enforcers seized nearly 12-feet coil of electric cable from Dipraj’s house. The boy told them that one of his friends asked him to keep it.
Kalinda Nath Goldar, Sub-Inspector of Sabujbagh Police Station, told The Daily Star that police had let Dipraj go through responding to locals’ and his parents’ requests and owing to the fact that Dipraj was just a teenager.
However, on his release that very day, the neighbouring woman created a scene and insulted Dipraj’s parents, Dipraj’s friend Sumon said. She created a commotion again on Saturday.
Dipraj was scolded later on by his parents.
Yesterday, when he was alone in the house on Patwari Goli of Bashabo, Dipraj, the only son of Khondker Nawab Ali and Yasmin Begum, hanged himself.
His parents and neighbours took him to Dhaka Medical College Hospital where doctors declared him dead.
Victim’s father Khondker Nawab Ali last night filed a case against Saifur Rahman Jewel, son of the neighbouring woman, for instigating suicide.